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The examination and identification of solvents and binder resins in particular has been discussed in detail previously. It is the sole purpose of this section to indicate the means available for obtaining these substances from finished paints in such a way as to facilitate their analysis. For example, the ASTM (15) has published a standard procedure for examining the solvent portion of paints by direct injection on to a GC. In this case, so as to prevent blockage of the column by the resin and pigment components, the sample was injected either via a glass injection port sleeve or on to a glass wool plug positioned in the heated injection port. Hence solvent analysis could be carried out without the need to apply any preliminary separation procedures. If however, both solvent and binder resin are to be examined then a procedure for separating these constituents must be applied.

Salts of aluminium and calcium such as stearates, octoates and naphthenates, are used to impart structure to oleoresinous paints. Alternatively, aluminium alcohoiates can be used as reactive intermediates which form salts by reaction with the medium. The use of these materials is generally restricted to flat or semi‐gloss paints and storage instability is sometimes encountered. A chlorinated rubber paint which contains titanium, kaolin, talc, a chloroparaffin plasticiser, and a solvent blend of hexyl acetate and xylene, is rendered thixotropic using a 1% level of aluminium stearate addition. The product is suitable for applying as thick corrosion‐resistant coatings to metals.

Thixotropy can be regarded as the loss of viscosity in a paint or other material that is brought about by mechanical agitation, and where the viscosity continues to decrease provided that this disturbance is continued for a period of time. Conversely, when the mechanical force is removed, the material then increases in viscosity and this recovery toward the initial structure continues to take place over a period of time. Sometimes the time dependency of the viscosity is vanishingly small so that the material is then properly referred to as pseudoplastic. In most of the literature, however, it is not usually possible to differentiate between thixotropy and true pseudoplasticity and therefore both kinds of structure are included in this review as they each are destroyed by mechanical agitation and recover when this is discontinued.

The majority of binders used in paint manufacture are either highly‐viscous or solid materials in their own right. The identification of their chemical constituents has been reported by Haken (71) using infrared spectroscopy at liquid nitrogen temperature. However, the procedure proved to be very expensive since a great deal of breakage of the equipment occurred owing to the need to keep cooling and then reheating to room temperature. A better procedure was considered to be fragmentation of the initial polymer samples to give volatile fractions better suited to GC examination, which was just as accurate as the spectroscopic approach and far simpler and cheaper to carry out.

For the separation and isolation of simple chemical compounds, the molecular weights of which in general do not exceed 600, gas chromatography offers one of the most flexible and adaptable analytical techniques available in the modern laboratory. It is only just over 25 years ago that the first successful applications of this technique were reported by James and Martin, yet modern commercial gas chromatographs exhibit a high degree of refined engineering applied to the separation procedures themselves which, when combined with microprocessor control and other recent developments in the field of electronic data handling, offer to the analyst considerable scope for the examination of even the most intractable samples. In the paint industry the facilities offered by gas chromatography are being fully exploited in the analysis of raw materials, notably solvents, monomers, oils and fats; in the analysis of finished paints and in the control of the working environment as demanded by present‐day health and safety regulations. This article presents a review of the analytical procedures that are possible using modern gas chromatography techniques.

In order to examine satisfactorily certain substances by gas chromatography they must first of all be converted into suitable derivatives with volatilities much greater than those of the parent compounds. In this class of materials are the fatty acids associated with the triglyceride oils used in alkyd resin manufacture, along with the polycarboxylic acids and polygols which are also used for this purpose. It can generally be expected that compounds containing polar functional groups that are capable of hydrogen‐bond formation will, when these are converted into suitable derivatives, be much more volatile than the parent compounds on account of the loss of these secondary bonds. It is this increased volatility which enables the substances to be successfully analysed by gas chromatography at temperatures which do not cause their thermal degradation.

Aromatic polyimides, polyamides and polyamide‐imides, as well as imide monomers, have been subjected to the alkali fusion technique of Schleuter and Siggia (164) using molten potassium hydroxide reagent. The volatile reaction products were concentrated in a cold trap as previously mentioned (c.f. alkyd resins and polyesters) prior to separation via GC. The identity of the monomer/polymer was determined from a study of the amine or diamine fragmentation products obtained, whilst the amount of each compound thus identified served as the basis for quantitative work. The isomeric 2,2′‐, 2,4′‐ and 4,4′‐ oligomers of diaminophenylmethane in aniline‐formaldehyde copolymers were identified individually by GC using 10% SE30 deposited on Chromaton N‐AW‐DMCS according to Krasnova et al (111).

The applications of gas chromatography in studies of air pollution have been reviewed by Braman (28) who stated that most substances in the environment could be examined chromatographically by following suitable sampling procedures. In particular mention was made of the analysis of permanent gases and vapours, locally‐high concentrations of chemicals such as may be found in the region of manufacturing plants, and the examination of particulate matter subsequent upon the use of appropriate collection techniques. Three methods for the collection of air samples were described.

This paper aims to explore if health professionals share understanding of teamwork that supports collaborative ward rounds.

A purpose-designed survey was conducted in two acute medical and two rehabilitation wards from a metropolitan teaching hospital. Medical officers, nurses and allied health professionals participated. To understand characteristics that support collaborative ward rounds, questions developed from literature and industry experience asked: what are the enablers and challenges to teamwork; and what are clinicians’ experiences of positive teamwork? Descriptive and thematic analyses were applied to the dimensions of effective teamwork as a framework for deductive coding.

Seventy-seven clinicians participated (93% response rate). Findings aligned with dimensions of teamwork framework. There was no meaningful difference between clinicians or specialty. Enablers to teamwork were: effective communication, shared understanding of patient goals, and colleague’s roles. Challenges were ineffective communication, individual personalities, lack of understanding about roles and responsibilities, and organisational structure. Additional challenges included: time; uncoordinated treatment planning; and leadership. Positive teamwork was influenced by leadership and team dynamics.

Ward rounds benefit from a foundation of collaborative teamwork. Different dimensions of teamwork present during ward rounds support clinicians’ shared understanding of roles, expectations and communication.

Rounds such as structured rounding, aim to improve teamwork. Inverting this concept to first develop effective collaboration will support team adaptability and resilience. This enables teams to transition between the multiple rounding processes undertaken in a single ward. The emphasis becomes high-quality teamwork rather than a single rounding process.

The concept of distributed leadership within library services is explored in this chapter. It focuses on how this model of leadership, which devolves leadership functions and practice widely throughout organizations, can lead to intra- and interorganizational collaboration as a catalyst for library service development and innovation. The chapter discusses the distributed leadership approach by presenting selected results of a study of team leaders in public and university library services in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. The study employed an online questionnaire and individual interviews with library team leaders to identify the level and nature of collaboration taking place in library services and also to ascertain the skills needed for successful partnership work. The interviews focused primarily on how and why collaborations occurred and it emerged that the team leaders had considerable autonomy to establish and participate in partnerships, fitting well within the distributed leadership paradigm. The chapter adds to, and augments the limited literature on distributed models of leadership in libraries by exploring how this approach works in practice. It also proposes and evidences a link between distributed leadership, collaborative working, and innovation. The authors suggest that distributed leadership can help library services innovate and lead service development by freeing up the creativity of employees through a less formal, hierarchical leadership approach. The chapter ends with propositions for a research agenda to establish the best conditions and most appropriate format of distributed leadership in library services.